Kunii and Genii
by Caithyra
Summary: Sakuno opened and closed her mouth before she found her voice again, and when she did, her lisp was greater than ever. Pointless fluff.


**Kunii and Genii**

"Kunimitsu, look what I found?" Tezuka Kunimitsu's mother held up her treasure with a beaming face.

It was small, as her forearm was longer, and its lavender fur was matted and dusty, and a leg had been lovingly, but with messy stitches, sewn back on with black threat, and one of its black button eyes hung lower than the other.

Tezuka recognised it. It was a teddy. But it wasn't his, no, it had simply been a loan.

~*~

He _didn't_ fidget, he was simply adjusting his tie. For the eleventh time in an hour. Unfortunately for him, the speaker had no consideration for his twelve year old patience with anything that wasn't tennis. He snuck a glance around the room. Mostly grown-ups in formal clothes with the occasional heir like himself, except that he didn't see anyone his age.

_**Crash!**_

Heads whipped around to stare at the young girl, at most she was eight, sit beside a laying waiter, shattered glasses around them and wine seeping into her white dress, colouring it pink.

And so did the girl. "I'M SO SORRY!"

"Sakuno," an all too familiar voice spoke up, and Tezuka couldn't believe his eyes when his tennis coach and math teacher walked up to the girl, apparently very familiar with her.

~*~

Sanada Genichiroh wasn't fond of having his meditation disturbed, even less so when it was his mother with a photo album of his younger years (it made him feel old, and his nephew would tease him). Still, he loved his mother and humoured her.

Which was how he was staring down at the scarf which fell out into his lap, long forgotten memories returning.

~*~

"Sakuno-chan, you're too cute!" Sanada almost rolled his eyes as his mother fawned over the clumsy girl as she returned, this time in a green and yellow dress.

"Thank you," the poor girl squeaked with a heavy lisp, due to missing a few teeth, while trying to hide behind her grandmother.

"Aww," Sanada's mother squealed, but Sanada was already distracted by a family approaching_._

_Tezuka!_

"Ah, Tezuka-san," Ryuzaki greeted them. She then nudged the girl. "Sakuno-chan, say hi."

Still blushing, the girl bowed. "Nice to meet you, I'm Ryuzaki Sakuno!"

Twin 'awws' erupted from the mothers, and Sanada found a silent, fellow sufferer in Tezuka. It was replaced by horror as both of them were simultaneously pushed forward. "Go on, introduce yourself."

"Sanada Genichiroh." Sanada finally bowed to her.

"Tezuka Kunimitsu." Tezuka did the same.

Briefly they heard their mothers muttering about their sons refusing to be cute, but they were distracted by a flustered Sakuno. "Nice to meet you, Sa-" She stopped and glanced around, her dilemma obvious.

~*~

Despite himself, Tezuka smiled as he looked down at the teddy.

~*~

Their adoring mothers had of course sensed Sakuno's discomfort, and it was Tezuka's who first spoke. "You can use our given names if you want to."

"Oh no, I couldn't!" Sakuno protested wildly, but the mothers bore down on her with identical grins.

"Say 'Ku-ni-mi-tsu-nii-chan'." Tezuka's own mother prompted.

"And 'Gen-ichi-roh-nii-chan'." Sanada's mother added.

Sakuno opened and closed her mouth before she found her voice again, and when she did, her lisp was greater than ever.

~*~

Sanada looked at his mother, she had always been a sucker for cute things.

~*~

"Aww! That's so cute! Call them that again!" the mothers chorused as Sakuno apparently tried to will the floor to swallow her.

In an impossible small voice, she did as she was told. "Kunii and Genii." The 'chan' was dropped as she nearly swallowed her tongue to get it right, together with the rest of poor Sanada and Tezuka's names.

Sanada didn't know if he could be more mortified when the three children were bundled off to a playroom, the boys being charged with keeping 'Sakuno-chan' happy.

Looking at her two, stoic companions, she asked in the same, small voice. "Do any of you like tennis?"

Sanada blinked, and his eyes met with Tezuka's. Maybe they would let the nicknames slide.

~*~

Ryuzaki Sakuno wasn't sure if she should just lay down and die out of embarrassment, or just simply stay petrified in mortification.

~*~

After that one party, whenever any of the three families had parties they would invite one another, and every time, the mothers would squeal and herd 'Kunii' and 'Genii' together with Sakuno. By this party, her teeth had grown out and the lisp was gone, but by then, she had called them Kunii and Genii that anything else seemed inappropriate.

Not that there was anything appropriate with the current situation. All three of them, inside her impossibly pink room, while the party went on downstairs.

Like always, Kunii and Genii looked uncomfortable, only, this time she had a _plan_. Striding over to her wardrobe, she pulled out her regular and reserve tennis racquets, plus some tennis balls. Turning towards the boys who watched her intently, she informed them brightly. "We have a tennis court in the backyard."

~*~

Sanada simply arched an eyebrow.

~*~

Pain raced through his knee, and Sakuno was there, pressing a wonderfully wet and cold scarf against it before she ran to Tezuka, whose painful shoulder made him collapse. They hadn't even noticed the rain until they slipped and tried to compensate. When his knee gave way and Tezuka switched to his left arm, catching the ball and point, but somehow injuring him enough to make his entire body shut down for a second.

He limped over to Tezuka, nodding curtly as Sakuno told him to watch the other boy before running inside.

Next time they met, he would be Sanada-san. The indomitable Emperor of Rikkai Dai.

~*~

Tezuka wondered if fate liked to laugh.

~*~

By the time his parents were hurrying him out the door, the pain had receded enough for him to accepted whatever soft offering it was Sakuno gave to him to protect him in the hospital.

Next time they met, he would be Tezuka-senpai. The pillar of Seigaku.

~*~

She had thought they forgotten her completely, and part of her hoped that they forgot the clumsy little girl with the bad ideas and inability to get their names right. But now, here they were, offering her two very familiar items. Looking at their expressionless faces, she came to a realisation. They were as embarrassed as she was. After all, she wasn't the one who chased a cat under a woman's skirt on a ball (it took _forever_ for Sanada to live that one down), neither was she the one who accidentally lead a group of children to the dessert cake (_one hour_ before dinner, and it took _one week_ to clean the Tezuka household kitchen from chocolate fingerprints). Just as she had made many mistakes in front of them, she had also equally witnessed their mistakes.

But they didn't run away from it, no, they stood in front of her, offering to give back the things she loaned them. She smiled.

"Thank you." A pause. "Kunii, Genii."

For a second, the three were back on the rainy tennis court, the boys playing 'til their hearts' content while she referred. Only this time, no one slipped.

Of course, there were just some things that weren't meant to last, and some things were universal in the middle school tennis world. Like teams spying on one another.

"Ii data," two voices chorused while their fellow teammates jostled for room in the tiny window.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Kirihara's voice was muffled by being squeezed between Kikumaru and Bunta.

"Maybe they're eloping?" Yukimura was, of course, not crowded.

"Who knew that Sakuno-chan liked threesomes," Fuji continued his train of thought.

Everyone stared in horror at their smiling faces. Then Kikumaru panicked. "Nyaa! We must stop Sakuno-chan from making the biggest mistake in her life!" Before anyone could stop him, he opened the window and jumped out. "Sakuno-chan, don't do it! You'll turn into an icicle if you marry those two!"

Tezuka and Sanada turned around. The glare they sent them sent Kikumaru, the closest one, into a dead faint. The two teams gulped. They were _so_ dead.

"Two-hundred laps! NOW!"

**End.**


End file.
